23 October 2007

-- BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Commission said Tuesday it will take Finland to court again — and ask for it to pay a €2 million (US$2.8 million) penalty, plus daily fines — for failing to ban chewing tobacco in the Swedish-speaking Aland Islands.

European regulators said all oral tobacco — whether chewing tobacco or snus — is dangerous because it contains "particularly large quantities" of cancer-causing chemicals.

Only Sweden has an exemption to an EU ban on the smokeless tobacco called snus that is usually stuck under the upper lip.